5 workers killed in attack in Russia's Dagestan

MAKHACHKALA, Russia 
Five repairmen on their way to fix a cell phone tower in Russia's violent southern province of Dagestan were killed Thursday in an explosion and subsequent gun attack, officials said.

A repair brigade escorted by police in a three-car convoy was ambushed about 80 kilometers (50 miles) south of the provincial capital of Makhachkala, regional police spokesman Vyacheslav Gasanov told The Associated Press.

Five workers were killed and three police injured when one of the vehicles was blown up and in the ensuing gunfire, Gasanov said.

Gasanov had said earlier that eight repairmen had been killed.

Dagestan is plagued by near-daily violence attributed both to criminal gangs and to separatists apparently inspired by the insurgency in neighboring Chechnya.